In Zoo 1, when you click the galaxy's object ID, you get taken to the page associated with that galaxy by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, who provide all of our images. As many of you have noticed, that feature isn't available in the Beta test of Zoo 2, and this seems to have caused some unrest.
In fact, the ability to get more information when classifying is bad for our results, for we need to assume that all users are seeing the same thing when classifying. If some are using the redshift, or the spectrum or some other information then that's not a good thing.
However, we know a lot of the fun is in following up on objects that intrigue you, and so when the My Galaxies feature is added you'll be able to click through to Sloan's database directly.
I hope that makes sense, and thanks for bearing with us while we get My Galaxies online.
I understand why you would like "to assume that all users are seeing the same thing when classifying," but it's false, because it's based on the assumption that every computer monitor has the same resolution and color balance, which is not at all accurate.
Lanky Yankee is absolutely correct about that. You have made unwarranted assumptions.
I think you should listed to the Zooites who are clamoring for object ID numbers. I am hating Zoo 2 more and more every time I use it. The beta version was less horrid than the new final version.
I bet if you let us vote on it, we would demand object ID numbers. It's like you are asking for crappy classifications by denying us data. I hate to leave, but Zoo 2 is just not copacetic the way you set it up.
I think the problem here is that there is a perception that the 'correct' way to classify is to take into account all of the extra data available in the Sloan. This is simply not the case, and I'm sorry if we're not explaining things correctly.
The aim of Galaxy Zoo is to collect visual morphologies for a large set of galaxies; in other words to sort galaxies according to their shape. Once we've done that, we can dig into the rest of the data to look at redshifts, colours and all of the rest of the data. The thing is that computers are much better than humans at sorted galaxies by those data, whereas humans are better at shapes. So we should do the bit we're good at, and then ask the computer about the other data.
That's what professional astronomers do; we're not hiding data from you that we'd use ourselves. So, for example, when Kevin looked at 50000 galaxies to find ellipticals, he viewed images not SDSS data.
I'm still pleased in Zoo 1 we gave you access to the rest of the data, and I understand a lot of the interest and excitement is in following up on unusual finds. The normal situation in Zoo 2, when not at times of extreme pressure on the server, will be for you to find and link to data for all the galaxies you've classified but only after the classification. That's the way it should have been in Zoo 1; it was a design flaw (if a happy one) to have it otherwise.
I hope you enjoy using the full Zoo 2 with My Galaxies. But if you can't bear to leave Zoo 1 behind, you'll find it
at http://zoo1.galaxyzoo.org.
